My Lifelong Love Affair with Conway Twitty

As a little girl growing up in the 1980's classic country music was the soundtrack of my formative years. My parents' favorites including Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Merle Haggard were always playing in our home, but it was Conway Twitty, an artist I discovered on my own, who captured my heart and has never let it go.

My lifelong love affair with Conway began when I heard The Clown and The Rose in close succession. These songs came out in 1982 and 1983 and since I would've only been 5 at the time I assume it was a few years later when I really got into country radio that I first heard them. Even at that young age I remember thinking his voice was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and that opinion has never wavered. 

In 1990 my parents started taking me to country music concerts. I was incredibly fortunate to see so many amazing artists, but Conway was always just out of reach. A few different times in the late '80s and early '90s he performed in Glens Falls, New York, in late November, but fears of winter weather and bad roads kept us home. In the spring of 1993 it was announced that he would be at the Vermont State Fair on September 5th. FINALLY my chance was coming to see my favorite, and the weekend before my 16th birthday, no less! 

Conway suffered a ruptured abdominal aneurysm and was taken from us on June 5, 1993. 

I still remember sitting on the couch that tragic Saturday morning when the news come over the radio. I think my own heart stopped in disbelief. Knowing I wouldn't be seeing him in concert 3 months later as I'd planned was devastating, and what made it even harder to comprehend is the fact that I had lost an aunt to the exact same thing a mere 2 weeks before on May 22. (Then on July 4th my father had his first heart attack. Let's just say 1993 was a really bad year.)

Apparently seeing Conway live was never meant to be, but my love for his music never diminished. It only continued to grow. I bought The Conway Twitty Collection box set in 1995 with some of my high school graduation money. It was the first box set I ever bought and a pretty big purchase for me at the time. I tucked news clippings and commemorative magazines that came out after his death in my bookcase. Any time I saw a Conway item at a flea market or yard sale I picked it up. "Conway is still the best" is a phrase anyone who has ever discussed music with me has heard at some point. 

For nearly 25 years after his death Conway remained a quiet but important part of my life, and then another phase of the love affair began: I started seriously collecting anything I could find on him and reading everything I could get my hands on to learn more about the man I was coming to realize meant more to me than I had ever realized. I'd kept him tucked away in a private part of my heart and that love was bursting to come out.

My plans for this blog are for it to be a celebration of all things Conway - the music, the memories, the memorabilia. Conway fans don't have a place we can go to honor our hero. His gift to us, Twitty City, was tragically dismantled in 1994, the victim of a bitter battle over his estate. Nashville never gave him the credit he was due in life and that certainly hasn't changed in death. It's up to his fans to keep his legacy alive, and that's exactly what I hope to do.

To borrow a line from his 1990 hit single, I'm crazy in love with Conway. Always have been, always will be.